The 1880 federal census records for Frederick County, Maryland, list Joseph E. Simons, from New Jersey, as the owner of a coach shop. In 1881 he and his wife, Mary, purchased a pottery operation along Big Hunting Creek near Mechanicstown that had been run by a potter named Jacob Lynn. Apparently investing on speculation and having no known training as a potter, Simons managed the pottery for approximately two years, using contracted labor supplied by a number of local master potters and apprentices. Among these potters was Anthony Wise Baecher (or Bacher), a potter who first apprenticed with his father in his Bavarian hometown of Falkenberg and, after immigrating, had apprenticeships in Adams County, Pennsylvania. Baecher had formed a partnership with Lynn in the pottery prior to the Simonses' purchase, and Lynn was an investor in an earlier pottery founded by Baecher about 1868–1870 in Winchester, Virginia. Baecher, one of the most skilled Germanic potters in the Shenandoah Valley, retained a regular and active interest in the Maryland pottery with Lynn until about 1880, when he began to focus more attention on his larger operation in Winchester.

The whimsical figure of the seated goat suggests Baecher's range, which stretched from ornamental umbrella stands, birdhouses, animal figures, and other decorative pieces to utilitarian household wares such as crocks, milk pans, and table articles. His colorful, mottled slip and glazed decoration, usually combining opaque yellow, greens, and browns, influenced the whole tradition of ceramics in the valley. Inventive and self-reliant, Baecher improved upon the standard potter's wheel of the period, which usually required the potter to stand before the rotating wheel. Baecher fitted his shop wheel with what was described by his son as a comfortable saddle, similar to that for a horse, which could be raised or lowered for position and comfort.

Some of Baecher's earliest signed works bear a script signature or are marked with a stamp using the original Germanic spelling of his name, "Bacher." These may indicate his tenure of production while in Maryland or during the initial phase of his activities in Winchester. He retained the script signature on many of his larger custom commissions but seems to have adopted the anglicized spelling "Baecher" in his later mark, as is seen on this example.

Jack L. Lindsey, "Seated Goat," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 452.